473 "AREA CODE" WARNING --- DO ***NOT*** RETURN ONE-RING CALLS FROM 473 AREA CODE

473 "AREA CODE" WARNING -- DO NOT RETURN DIAL ONE RING CALLS FROM AREA CODE 473 (Repeat of earlier warning with new information added)

It is a variant of a scam that surfaced 11 years ago in Japan and called the "Wangiri scam:"

From Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2002/08/21/n ... r/#.Ur2543-9KSN

From the Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/1367988

A few U.S. news organizations, but not many, have picked up on this latest variant:

KPVI, Pocatello, ID TV report on Grenada phone scam
http://youtu.be/eSp9tY1gBW8

From Toledo News Now
http://www.toledonewsnow.com/story/23695832/b ... huge-phone-bill

In the current variant of this scam, the caller doesn't have any intention of talking to you. All the scammer wants is for you to get upset enough about the late night call that you return the call, never even noticing that it is from a foreign country outside the reach of US or Canadian laws. When you return the call (at international rates), there may also be a big surcharge added to your phone bill that gets passed along to the scammer.

At least one early report on 800notes.com, if taken at face value, asserted that a charge of $100.00 was made to a phone bill for calling back for 15 seconds. Even regular calls to 473 numbers are billed at upwards of $1.80 per minute by almost all cell phone carriers, even on so-called "unlimited" phone plans, unless you have paid extra for an international dialing plan.

That's why either:
(1) you can't return the phone call, because even though you would otherwise be able to dial it like an ordinary long distance number, you phone company has a restriction on your placing international calls (which these are). At least some pre-paid cell phone services work this way. If this case applies to you, consider yourself lucky. Or,
(2) when you call back and get through, the operator of the 473 phone number tries to keep you on hold for as long as possible to run up your phone bill and their profits.

The scammers don't have to be associated with recent security breaches. All they have to do is randomly dial a lot of telephone numbers in already-assigned area codes. And they must be dialing a LOT of them based on the complaints logged to 800notes. It probably doesn't cost them anything to dial, either, if the called party (you) doesn't pick up the call before they hang up. It only takes a small percentage of angry and/or curious people calling back for them to make a lot of money. They don't even have to pay for real people to operate a call center -- it's all done by machines, outside the reach of US and Canadian law enforcement.

So do yourself a favor and don't call these scammers back. And you'll also be doing us all a favor, because they wouldn't call anyone at all if there weren't so many people who fell for this scam.

Someone's service provider uses the 'NoMoRobo' service. A junk call called, & NoMoRobo did it's job & blocked it. What did the person do? Called the number back. I have NO doubt the the 473 scammers are making money.

>>> NoMoRobo did it's job & blocked it. What did the person do? Called the number back. <<<

Do you hear that sound in the distance?  That's the sound of me ripping what little remains of my hair out.

Répète vous .... Poor security is not a technological fault; it is a social problem. To become a victim of fraud is a choice.

Guys, nowadays we have to be smart in regards to picking up the phone whenever you receive a call.  Anything unusual, just do not pick up the phone and just let your answering machine to do the job.  For example: unusual time of call, unusual number, private number or caller and any weird long numbers that you are not familiar with, just do not pick it up and let it go to your answering machine.  If someone want to talk to you, they will definitely leave a message on your answering device and you can listen and review those messages at your convenience and now it is your decision whether you want to talk to that person or not.  If you do want to talk to them then call them back if you do not want to talk to them just delete the message at your ease.  That's it, simple as that!.  By doing this, we can kill all tele-annoying job and tele-scammer job since they could not make any tele-sales and they do not have anybody to scam.

>>> now it is your decision whether you want to talk to that person or not.  If you do want to talk to them then call them back if you do not want to talk to them just delete the message at your ease.  That's it, simple as that! <<<

You are 100% correct.  It really is that simple.

What isn't that simple is why so many people do not seem to have the common sense to make that kind of decision.

They called my Co-worker this morning about 2:38am.

I'm going to e-mail this link to her, and some others on my e-mail list.

Bingo.

Your last sentence hits the nail squarely  on the head.  Common sense died a long time ago IMHO.

I have a hard time not picking up the phone, or even though I know exactly who's calling because they call everyday I still pick up the phone and am still nice to them... Gah! Where I'm from everyone has this problem, too nice for our own goods. I'm slowly turning into an [***] on the phone.. I'm still told I'm too nice but now after 4 calls I'm just flat out, "not interested" *click*.

And yes I feel like a dumbass, but I'm definitly not going to deal with the area code 473, haven't had anything from them yet. I see a lot of 202, 212, 847, 866, 888 (obv).

Some people have jobs that are international. So, a missed call also means a missed opportunity of business. So, if you make minimum wage or an 8-5 job, it would be common sense not to answer, because you don't deal with people outside of your city block.

Quote:

Some people have jobs that are international. So, a missed call also means a missed opportunity of business. So, if you make minimum wage or an 8-5 job, it would be common sense not to answer, because you don't deal with people outside of your city block.

Horse hockey!!!

I get calls from all over the country in my link of work, as well as international calls. Every single one of these callers will leave me a message or contact me by email, fax, or even DHL Express from overseas if they have a legitimate business interest in contacting me.

If your above-minimum wage job requires you avoid missed opportunities having anything to do with one-ring calls in the middle of the night from Grenada that leave no message, then I might well suggest that your business is more likely involved in making those calls rather than in calling them back.

I'm amazed the the big 3 US news (CBS, NBC, ABC) haven't picked up on this yet. The spike in reporting on 800 notes shows that this is big. Just enough rings to trigger the caller ID & then they hang up. I'm sure it's all computer run, with little to no cost for the scammers. Never dull.

Looks like this website is hurting your business too - or you wouldn't be here, would you????